Finance: Building a Robust Business (Coursera)

When it comes to numbers, there is always more than meets the eye. In operational finance, you will learn how to read the “story” that the balance sheet and income statement tells about the company’s operations. The insights you gain from this “financial story” will then become a tool for short-term decision-making at the top management level relating to current assets, current liabilities and the management of working capital.

Finally, by the end of the course you will understand the financial consequences of managerial decisions on operations, marketing, etc.

Good management is equal parts knowing and doing. No matter what industry you work in or where you are in your career, a basic understanding of decision-making, influence, and other management fundamentals will help you achieve your professional goals. This Specialization will give you a comprehensive introduction to the practice of management through the lens of four key disciplines: accounting, finance, marketing, and organizational behavior. In each course, you'll analyze real business cases from these four perspectives. In the final Capstone Project, you’ll apply what you’ve learned to develop a holistic solution to a real-world business dilemma.

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Through this course, you will learn how individuals and firms make financial decisions, and how those decisions might deviate from those predicted by traditional financial or economic theory. We will explore the nature of these biases and their origins, using insights from psychology, neurosciences and experimental economics on how the human mind works.

Learn how to get your new venture funded. Understand capital structure for new ventures. Develop an understanding of investor pitches. This course is for aspiring or active entrepreneurs who wants to understand how to secure funding for their company.This course will demystify key financing concepts to give entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs a guide to secure funding.

Learn how to read and analyze financial statements and understand basic techniques to manage costs and capital investment decisions. This is an introductory course on financial and management accounting. How many times have you heard of net profit, operating profit, operating margin, cash, earning and so on? But are they referring to the same concepts or are they different things?

We make thousands of decisions every day. Do I cross the road now, or wait for the oncoming truck to pass? Should I eat fries or a salad for lunch? How much should I tip the cab driver? We usually make these decisions with almost no thought, using what psychologists call “heuristics” – rules of thumb that enable us to navigate our lives. Without these mental shortcuts, we would be paralyzed by the multitude of daily choices.

Learn how to conduct risk analysis of different projects using both conceptual and practical developments in modern finance. This finance course will begin by exposing learners to the critical role risk plays in evaluating projects.

This course provides a brief introduction to the fundamentals of finance, emphasizing their application to a wide variety of real-world situations spanning personal finance, corporate decision-making, and financial intermediation.